Of Cremona Violins, the ear, and peer review

I found the book review by Gabriel Weinreich of Kameshwar Wali’s Cremona Violins particularly interesting. Although I agree that the book could have been written a little better and terms defined more carefully, one should not be dismissive of a lifetime’s work by a dedicated individual with solid credentials. Reductionist methods will probably not, at any time in the near future, be able to describe the acoustics of an instrument as complex as the violin.

The human ear is a far superior judge of sound quality than any measuring device. When an expert violinist says a Stradivarius sounds better, I am sure she means it. Being an amateur violinist myself, I can easily tell the difference between good and mediocre violins, even though I may not be able to quantify my assessments or communicate them to others. Science is only one part of human intellectual experience.

In my view, Cremona Violins is part science and part subjective experience of individuals who possess skills that should not be dismissed by snooty scientists like ourselves. Hence I find Weinreich’s concluding remark that the book is one of science’s notable aberrations especially uncharitable.